School 2017: Episode 13 recap

I can watch a whole drama of X pulling off pranks and stunts at the school forever and be satisfied with how things go. While I wished we were gifted with more pranks by X because they’re so funny and entertaining and the set-ups to them are actually quite nicely done, I’m just happy that we were given another one in this episode. Combine this with more cute and romantic scenes between Tae-woon and Eunho and you get a win-win situation. Yay!

School 2017 Episode 13: Between the Two

In the last episode, we left off with Tae-woon and Eunho confessing their love for each other and starting the first day of their relationship (aww).

Eunho heads home that night to relieved and stress-free parents. Turns out her father was able to find his friend who had scammed them and will now start to receive payments back from him on the first day of every month. Eunho is happy, but not for the reasons that her parents think she is. The word “first” reminds her of how that day is the first day of her relationship with Tae-woon and in response she just squeals. She spends that whole night reminiscing over what happened earlier that day at school with Tae-woon.

AHHHH MY HEART IS GOING TO BURST FOR 2 REASONS: 1) TAE-WOON IS LOOKING SO DAMN FINE IN THAT WHITE T-SHIRT THAT’S NOT BUTTONED ALL THE WAY UP 2) BTS’s ‘Boy in Luv’ is playing in the background while Tae-woon’s dancing and celebrating and my ARMY heart can’t take this. I feel so attacked. School 2017, the next time you’re gonna use a BTS song please warn me so I don’t nearly have a heart attack. Thanks.

Tae-woon calls his girlfriend and asks for some chicken because you know… he’s craving some even though he doesn’t even eat chicken. At first Eunho declines, but she eventually gives in and grabs some chicken to deliver to Tae-woon. But before she knows it, Tae-woon’s already waiting at her place for her. She won’t need to deliver to him after all. The couple tease and mess around with each other that night.

While Eunho’s relationship with Tae-woon and Bo-ra seems to be going strong, her friendship with Sarang is deteriorating. It’s just not the same between them anymore, but it seems like Eunho doesn’t notice this change while Sarang is fully aware of it. What will happen to their friendship?

Eunho and Tae-woon are spending time with each other on campus when Sarang witnesses the couple together. On full alert, she runs over to them holding up a broom ready to attack Tae-woon. But Eunho stops her and confesses 2 things to her: 1) Tae-woon is her boyfriend and 2) her boyfriend is X.

Eunho apologizes to Sarang for not having told her any of these things earlier. She also rambles to her best friend about how she and Tae-woon fell in love and became a couple. Sarang is even invited to what used to be the hideaway spot and is now the study room where she joins Tae-woon, Eunho, Bo-ra, and Dae-hwi in studying for school. But she doesn’t seem happy or satisfied. She still feels excluded and lonely.

Some classmates address with Nam-joo the lies that she had been telling them regarding her dad’s taxi company and other issues. Embarrassed, she runs out of the classroom followed by Dae-hwi who had witnessed part of the situation. Dae-hwi tries to make positive the situation, but she doesn’t want his help. He returns back to the classroom to talk with the same classmates about what had just happened. He threatens the classmates to stop once and for all or else he’s gonna teach them all a lesson.

Dae-hwi heads outside for some fresh air and is accompanied by Tae-woon. There are no words spoken between them, but they share a moment of silence with each other while drinking some soda.

Bully leader Young-gun is forced into working part-time with Officer Soo-ji. While walking with her, she comes across Bo-ra. Bo-ra greets Young-gun, but she isn’t too friendly in return. Maybe one day things will get better between the two.

Sarang’s feeling a little down so Kyung-woo tries to cheer her up. Together with her and Issue, they all join one another for some drinks at a coffee shop. Sarang does eventually feel a little better after seeing her favorite idol and thanks Kyung-woo for planning this small meet-up.

Tae-woon, Eunho, and their group of friends eat some lunch together. Eunho notes that the amount of food for lunch has been declining in which Bo-ra also agrees. Eunho accidentally gets herself into a date with Tae-woon after expressing cravings for something sweet. Tae-woon will take her out to get sweets the next day.

The next day arrives and the both of them get ready for their first date. While waiting outside Eunho’s house, Tae-woon has a small talk with her brother. They talk for a little bit, but stop when Eunho exits out of her house. Tae-woon stares at her in the most endearing and loving way. Aww, someone’s in love.

The couple enjoy their date, whether that’d be by competing in a game of darts with each other or Tae-woon stealing a kiss on Eunho’s cheek while walking. After playing some games, Tae-woon takes Eunho to another place, but this time it’s different. He takes her to go visit his late mother.

Tae-woon and his dad had promised each other that they’ll only visit their mother when something good happens and when they’re happy and since Tae-woon is feeling happy, he decided to bring Eunho with him and visit his mother. Eunho introduces himself to his mother and the couple decides to stay at the memorial site for a little bit longer. Eunho becomes sleepy and rests her head on Tae-woon’s shoulder while he caresses her in his arms.

The next day, the squad joins one another for lunch again. However, after eating lunch, Eunho and Byung-goo’s stomachs start to hurt. It seems like the sausage that they both ate is the reasoning behind this.

It turns out that the sausage they ate had already expired by a few months. Sarang’s mother – who discovers this news – tries to bring it to the principal’s attention but he’s too busy investigating the X case that he shrugs this issue off. He has other things to worry about than this.

Eunho’s family worries about the lunch that Eunho’s school is serving the students. There’s been controversy lately around school lunches and they’re afraid that Eunho’s school might be serving food that’s due way past the expiration date.

Sarang’s mother visits the principal’s office again the next day to get the principal to do something about this. However, he still remains the same and in fact he bribes Sarang’s mother with money to get her to stop talking about the expired food.

Sarang shares this information with the rest of the crew. They become worried over what things could possibly happen next and if anyone else will get sick over the school lunch. Tae-woon also tries to alert his father about this issue, but just like the principal his father just shrugs it off. Meanwhile, Eunho has resorted to eating Subway instead of the school lunch ever since the incident (LOOOOOL). She worries about the health of the other students who might also get sick from eating the school lunch. Tae-woon then decides to do something about it.

YESSSSS, it seems like we’re getting another “prank” from none other than our original X, Tae-woon. That night he visits the school cafeteria to investigate the food that they’ve been serving students. But unlike before, this time he’s joined by the rest of the crew. They all show up in black sweaters just like him and together they head to the kitchen to look into the freezers.

Just like what they had expected and assumed, the freezers are full of expired food. Everything is going according to plan until Dae-hwi cause a utensil to fall to the floor and make a noise. Officer Soo-ji and Young-gun who are patrolling the campus that night hear the noise and head towards the direction they heard it from.

The X squad sneak out of the cafeteria and attempt to leave campus, but they come to a close encounter with Officer Soo-ji and Young-gun. They have no other choice but to head back inside the cafeteria and hide from the two. They divide up and Tae-woon and Eunho hide in a small space with each other. Even amongst the fear and intensity, Tae-woon has the time to pull a few jokes, saying that it feels extra nice to be X on this certain day. OMG. LOL.

Officer Soo-ji and Young-gun enter the kitchen where everyone’s hiding. Officer Soo-ji is a few feet away from discovering Tae-woon and Eunho until Young-gun stops her. She picks up the utensil from the floor and justifies the item as the cause for the noise. With that, the two leave and the crew is saved. But of course, X wouldn’t be X without creating some havoc so before leaving the crew pulls another stunt.

This time, all the expired food is exposed and thrown all over the kitchen. Not only that, restaurant deliverymen head over to the school with boxes and bowls of black bean noodles, pork cutlets, and all kinds of other food. They argue with the principal, claiming that they were told to deliver to the school while the principal continually denies it. Of course, this was all Tae-woon’s doings as X and it’s a smart and great one as all the students are treated to some delicious food that they actually enjoy for once.

Officer Soo-ji wants Teacher Shim to investigate the new X incident, but he refuses to. He can’t afford to have his students exposed and revealed. Officer Soo-ji’s patience runs out and she wants to take on this case alone. They can’t continue to protect the students like this.

Director scolds Principal for not catching X within a week like how he had promised. He pitches in a few ideas as to how they can catch X, but wants the principal to do whatever he can to catch X. Principal has a meeting with Vice Principal that day and together they come up with methods they can use to successfully capture X.

The school lunch menu has improved tremendously and students are given healthier and yummier food, but this improvement feels icky for Tae-woon. He feels like something’s off.

While doing late night campus patrol, Officer Soo-ji and Young-gun come across Bo-ra. She joins them in finishing the rest of patrol and is treated to snacks by Officer Soo-ji. But while preparing for the snacks, Bo-ra is curious about the handcuffs in Officer Soo-ji’s hands so the officer handcuffs both Young-gun and Bo-ra with each other to test it out. Officer Soo-ji lies that she needs to go to the police station in order to get the keys to the handcuffs, but she already actually has them. She had deliberately planned this in an effort to get the two to make up and be on good terms with each other.

Young-gun and Bo-ra finally clear up any misunderstandings between the two of them. But while talking, Bo-ra’s nose starts to bleed and they head to the bathroom to take care of the nosebleed. The situation reminds them of back when they still used to be good friends and Young-gun would take care of Bo-ra. Seems like things haven’t changed.

Teacher Shim meets the two on campus and hurries Officer Soo-ji to release them from the handcuffs. He then scolds her for putting the two in handcuffs with each other. But Officer Soo-ji isn’t having any of his criticisms tonight. She expresses frustration in how all her methods to Teacher Shim seem wrong and thoughtless, but his methods are always okay. He’s always making her angry and she doesn’t like it. But Teacher Shim defends himself and apologizes. It’s not that he does this on purpose; he just doesn’t know how else to convey these emotions without sounding so mean and rude. Officer Soo-ji surprises Teacher Shim by planting a kiss on his cheeks after his apology. “Are you apologizing to me or are you confessing to me?” – Officer Soo-ji. Haha. Nice one there.

Tae-woon and Eunho converse over the school lunch issue. The new school lunches are all just a set-up for now, but later on the food will go back to getting bad again. Tae-woon suggests that he pulls another incident as X again to resolve this issue, but Eunho gets mad. She doesn’t want him to.

That night, Eunho tries to contact Tae-woon, but he doesn’t respond back to her. It’s because he’s busy attempting to pull another incident as X. However, things are different this time as Tae-woon is close to getting caught. The principal had hired security guards to guard the cafeteria that night and catching Tae-woon moving into action. Eunho hurries to the scene dressed in all black, carrying with her the black sweater.

Once captured and held down, the principal comes out from the shadows and approaches Tae-woon. Eunho also happens to arrive at the same time that the principal is walking towards Tae-woon. She watches the principal grab onto the hoodie of Tae-woon’s black sweater, ready to unveil it.

The moment is intense and uncertain as Eunho witnesses Tae-woon get caught and Tae-woon waits for his identity as X to finally be discovered.

My Thoughts:

OH NOOOOOOO. NO NOT TAE-WOON.

Okay, just kidding. But Tae-woon might have gotten too excited and confident as X ehh? He’s been successful this entire time with all his stunts and pranks that maybe he went a little bit too overboard with this one and pulled another incident too quickly. Can’t blame him when his success rate has been 100% so far and he just wants the school lunches to be better, but at the same time he did receive plenty of warnings from all around him. He definitely should have known better than to be X again especially with all the precautions and methods that the principal has been taking to fulfill his responsibility of capturing X.

I’m in love with the idea where Dae-hwi, Eunho, Sarang, and Bo-ra join Tae-woon in his quest of achieving justice by committing pranks as X just because it was an idea that I had wanted from the start and am glad to see happened in this episode. Tae-woon wasn’t alone and was rather this time accompanied by his friends and it was refreshing to see a whole bunch of new X’s make change even if just for a short while. It was also compelling and interesting to see the danger and risks that they were all faced with when they were about to be captured by Officer Soo-ji which I think the drama did a good job demonstrating: yes, being X can be fun and rewarding but at the same time there are so many risks that comes along with it and if you’re caught, that’s the end for you. Choose your options wisely.

I’m hoping we can get more of Sarang and Eunho’s story behind the deterioration of their friendship. Not that I want to see more of sad Sarang (but then again that would also mean more Kyung-woo and Sarang moments which I am definitely here for), but I’m particularly interested in this sub-plot because it’s a narrative that the drama had showed us early into the drama so to see the two slowly fall apart and become distant is so interesting. You actually saw how their friendship shifted and how that distance came to be. Eunho started to spend more time with Tae-woon and then she also helped support Bo-ra with her issues and problems, sacrificing her friendship with Sarang in the process. It seems like Eunho’s aware of this to some extent, but isn’t doing much to change things and to make Sarang feel better about how distant they’ve become. I’m hoping that we’ll get more glimpses of this though and more effort put in by Eunho on her behalf. I understand that spending less time with friends once you get a partner/significant other is totally a thing because it does happen (like it did to me), but it’s more of the aftermath that matters and I want to witness Eunho make up for the lack of effort she’s been putting into her friendship with Sarang. I just want them to be best friends again and hang out again. Is that too much to ask for? (Also, I’m really loving all the Kyung-woo and Sarang moments we’re getting. I can tell the drama is setting them up to be a couple and I’m all for it).

Like I stated in the introduction of this recap, if this drama was just a drama that showed pranks and stunts executed by X and nothing else I would be totally satisfied with it. I’m actually really liking this whole X thing because 1) it’s fun and entertaining and then also really scary during the times when X is close to getting caught 2) the set-up and build-up leading to the actual prank itself is smart, creative, and logical that when the stunt actually happens you’re not confused as to why or how it came about. I’m enjoying these incidents and pranks so much that I wished there had been more done by X in the past few episodes and maybe it’s the lack of pranks committed by X recently that this episode was so refreshing for me. Combine that with the squad helping Tae-woon out and everything got 10x’s better. Since we’re nearing the end of the drama, I doubt we’ll get any more incidents and pranks though which is unfortunate. It seems like for the rest of the drama, it’s going to focus on Tae-woon’s getting caught (or rather Eunho sacrificing herself to save him) and the aftermath with all of that which should make for a less interesting end. Don’t stop the fun yet!

In addition to pranks and incidents by X, I wouldn’t mind watching an entire new drama with Teacher Shim and Officer Soo-ji as well. I think their storyline is another interesting one in itself because they’re opposites in the way they think and approach the students into learning about the real world, but they also work well together. If there was an entirely new drama with the two of them as the main characters, I would totally watch it. In way it’s a little regretful that they’re not as heavily focused and emphasized in School 2017. Granted it’s a school drama so of course they’re not going to be our main characters, but I don’t know. I wanna see more of them and knowing that we’re not going to get any more of their characters from anywhere else other than this drama makes me a bit sad. There’s so much character and storyline potential wasted and I want to see more of them.

Sooner or later Tae-woon and Eunho are bound to get caught and while a part of me hope that they don’t in the next episode, a part of me also wants them to so we can just get this over with and start with all the punishments that are to proceed afterwards. It’s inevitable and I think the drama is going to take this route so I would rather have it happen sooner than later. I just hope that when it does, the discovery doesn’t ruin Tae-woon and Eunho’s relationship with each other and that this crucial moment demonstrates the strength of their love for each other rather than weaken their relationship. They’ll only be able to test their love and care for each other when they face struggles and obstacles that has to do with the other and I think we’ll get our answer in the next episode just how strong their relationship is. Here’s to hoping it’s like a rock and that the bind between the two never breaks but only gets stronger. They’ve only been a couple for a few days, we can’t have them end so soon yet (or ever).